Dreams and Athanasia
by Leks Bronks
Summary: AI fan fiction piece I wrote quite a long time ago, and serves as one of my very first attempts at writing. Circa 2001.
1. Ch 1

His voice pierced the air with his strangely alluring laughter, genuinely contained yet artificially condoned, as he finally toppled Teddy's remarkable five-in-a-row streak of winning Go Fish. David had kept himself and his companion engrossed in steadfast competition ever since having first been tought to play by Monika a few days ago. With the exception of night and tabletime, the fun never seemed to wear out. He cheered in his mysteriously charming manner as he indulged in victory, and tossed all of his cards down before him on a feintly painted and chipped lacquer tv tray.  
  
"I beat you!"  
  
Sitting across from him was Teddy, whose strangely comforting face remained emotionless and complacent as he gracefully accepted defeat as always, and simply tossed the rest of his hand down on the tv tray. His glossy, ceramic black eyes peered over their mismatched numbers and colours against David's full set of 3's.  
  
"Yes, you did."  
"I beat you again!"  
"Yes, David."  
  
As David laughed ceaselessy, his tiny processors caught up in the excitement of the moment, Teddy prepped to stand up. The gears and hydraulics within his fabricated legs gently purred in nearly inaudible ballet. David's bright blue eyes watched Teddy, and as soon as the supertoy was fully upright, it struck David to follow suit - and he leapt to his feet ecstatically, grabbing at the tv tray. Teddy regarded his friend with open arms.  
  
"Let's go tell Mommy how well you did."  
  
David took a step forward, but froze solid in his tracks as a thought interrupted any and all transmission within as he felt compelled to say something. He turned around to look at Teddy, still holding the tv tray.  
  
"Maybe Mommy will play with us!"  
  
*************  
  
Monica sat at the foot of her bed, motionless, as she always did during these long and winding battles of undeniable guilt within herself. She had sat this way unmoving, all morning long, since first awakening. She barely stirred, even as David had come to give her First Light's greeting and bring her her coffee, and spoke only once to send David off to play - and had David's little ears not been quite so receptive to such quiet sounds, he'd have heard not even that.   
  
No matter how hard her conscience tried to exonerate herself, she couldn't escape the inferno of her thoughts - today, she must take David away.  
  
She stared long and hard at the pamphlet of stirred papers strewn across the nightstand, the bright, blood red label affixed to the front page staring right back at her. As she read each word printed across its glossy surface, each beat of her heart panged with regret, more and more, until she was sure it might press its way right out of her chest in its retaliation.  
  
CIRRUS SOCRATES...  
  
Monica raised a trembling hand to her brow, yet her eyes still traced the words in painful memory.  
  
PARTICLE DECIBEL...  
  
As her afterthoughts plagued her in sadness and despair, she could almost make out the incarnate of her wicked selfishness, prodding its mythical blade deep into her temple.   
  
HURRICANE...  
  
The tears that took prevalence in her eyes kept her from making out the last two words. Her fragile stasis inevitably and instantly collapsed as the piercing shrill of David's laughter reverberated off the empty walls and shocked Monica back to reality. She pitched forward and buried her face in her hands, her sudden coming-to releasing all of the emotion within her in a violently engulfing manner. If she would have waited. If she would have only waited.  
  
"Why did I do it? Why did I do it?"   
  
She crushed her hands hard against her face to silence herself, to avoid David hearing her. No longer able to contain her intense distress, she clamped her teeth down hard upon her first and second fingers - the raw, alarming taste of blood suddenly filled her tongue, and its scent made her choke as she collapsed to the floor. She just rocked back and forth upon her knees, pleading in silent whisper into the carpet.  
  
"Why was I so impatient.."   
  
She rocked back and forth for a few moments, her chest heaving and her breath hard, until she had managed to calm herself down. She just maintained a dead stare into the firbers of the carpet, focusing in on the individual strands, the blood that danced across it, the imperfections of its mend, anything to keep her from thinking about what must be done.  
  
"What are you doing, Mommy?"  
  
She froze instantly at the voice. Holding her breath, she looked up. Out of the corner of her eye, she could make out the figure of David standing in the doorway, his arms wrapped tightly about Teddy's belly. They both stood there, perfectly still, watching her - and smiling.  
  
"Is this a game?" 


	2. Ch 2

She started up at his words, her tears and despair retracting back into her Soul to be locked away, as if they never had been. Glancing at her bloody fingers, she quickly thrust her hand into the loose hemn of her oversized t-shirt and wrapped it thrice to conceal the blood from David, then stooped up on one knee to cover the blood that had lined the carpet. Wiping her other hand across her face to obliterate the feint teartrails, she instantly donned the air of emotionlessness she so often carried in front of David. Her words were hesitant, surprised - in a rather displeased way.  
  
"Wh... What do you want? Didn't I tell you to go play??"  
  
David appeared not the least bit phased by her distress, and he simply dismissed it as a young boy most likely would. His smile remained eerily uninhibited as his soft, blue eyes seemed to stare right into her.   
  
"Teddy and I finished our game, Mommy. We want to know if you would.."  
"NO! Get out of here!"  
  
Monica snapped, and threw her arm out towards him threateningly, causing David to take a step backwards in confusion, holding Teddy tightly in his arms. As she watched the corners of David's little mouth slowly begin to descend, she was instantly awash in regret - why did she feel compelled to be so mean to him? She shook her head, and reached her arm out again, this time more cautiously and softly.  
  
"I'm... sorry, David. I .. just.."  
  
But David simply responded in his eternally jovial and forgiving manner, the smile returning to his face in full force. He took a step forward, coming towards Monica.   
  
"It's okay, Mommy. You're busy cleaning, and Teddy and I shouldn't bother you and all, but we just wanted you to play cards with us before we leave for our day together!"  
  
His voice filled with delighted emphasis on the last words, and it was obvious that he was eager to spend his day alone with Mommy, without Henry, without Martin... just David, Mommy, and Teddy. All together. Monica's eyes widened at his words, and she swallowed hard against the lump of mutiny she felt creeping dangeroulsy up her throat.   
  
"Oh, David, I.."  
  
She paused, trying to choose her words carefully, for both of their sake.   
  
"There's not enough time, David. We need to leave soon. Just.. you and Teddy.."  
  
For some reason, her brain became very heavy - she could barely hold her head up to keep eye contact with David. 'So this is what true shame and treachery feels like', a voice clouded her thoughts. Her eyes closed. Her lacerated fingers throbbed beneath the bloodsoaked cloth of her t-shirt. She could no longer bear the pain, and her voice fell into obscurity.   
  
"Go and get dressed, and ready to leave. You and Teddy."  
  
************  
  
David obediently obliged his mother's wishes, as he always did with grace, and ran into his room, toting Teddy by his right paw. Dangling at his companion's side, the supertoy couldn't help but smile as they both disappeared into his room. They both emerged a rather fast minute later, David fully dressed and carrying a dark green and navy blue plaid jacquard blanket across his shoulder. Teddy chased after him eagerly as he ran down the steps, the two of them leaping two at a time in classic childish fashion. After launching himself from the bottom step, David slid to a halt in the middle of the living room, his eyes momentarily caught by the sight of a freshly sprouted sunflower out in the garden, blooming brightly beside the ornamental pond. With excited and curious eyes, David looked around for Monica.   
  
"Mommy - we're ready! Where are you?"  
  
Monica gasped in surprise at David's sudden outburst at the bottom of the stairs - his voice always managed to catch her off-guard somehow, no matter how much she had been expecting it. Her hand trembled momentarily as she stood over the bathroom sink. The trails of tears had returned, and her stormy grey eyes stared solemnly at the reflection of herself in the mirror. She absently squeezed her freshly bandaged hand.   
  
"I should have waited."  
  
Taking a deep breath, Monica forced herself to turn away from her deadstare, collected her bag, and headed for the foot of the stairs. Straightening her yellow blouse (she had changed after her shirt had collected a substantial amount of blood), she pulled the fingers of her other hand through her slightly entangled hair and donned her emotional chainmail once again as best she could. Leaning over the brass banister, she called down.  
  
"Coming David. Why don't you meet me at the car?"  
  
She fell silent and awaited David's response, which naturally, was a polite return follwed by the scuffling of feet as David and Teddy trampled out the front door. As she heard the door close and the house vacate itself of all sound, she sighed quietly as she slowly made her way down the staircase. 


	3. Ch 3

*************  
  
Monica finally found her way out the font door after restling with the hesitant demons within herself. She paused atop the threshold and peeked around the corner. As she had expected, David was already seated in the vehicle, his seat belt donned and Teddy in his lap; they both sat quietly, unknowing of her presence and looking around at the still and seemingly unmoving envrionment around them through the window - so pleased, so easily amused, so....   
  
"If it's reasonable to assume he can love, then it's ALSO reasonable to assume he can hate."  
  
Henry's words reverberated in her brain and made themselves noticed, almost as if he had sensed her hesitation from wherever he be at the moment. Monica closed her eyes in submission, wishing ever so much that a black hole would open beneath her feet and swallow her whole, disappearing from this cruel assignment forever. Scratching a tiny itch that had developed on the back of her neck, she took another step forward, and came around the corner, making a beeline right for the driver's seat. David smiled in his perpetually loving manner as he saw her near the car, and anxiously leaned over iin his seat to open the doorlock for her. He popped the mechanism with his forefinger, and glanced up to Monica as she ducked in and settled herself in the seat.  
  
"Are we ready to go, Mommy?"  
  
Both boy and bear looked up to Monica with admiring eyes, then turning their heads in tandem, fixed their gaze at the environment outside the window in prearation for the drive. Monica stared at them both, all the while wishing she could simply tear her heair out by the roots. But she responded advertently with a smile, albeit a fake one, and nodded, hardly able to hold back the tears.  
  
"Yes, David. We're ready. "  
  
Taking a deep sigh that seemed to fill the entire chamber of the vehicle, Monica started it up, and pulled out of the driveway. For all of her sadness, all of her guilt, she still couldn't bring herself to not check the messagebox on the way out.   
  
************  
  
They had been on the road for less than one quarter of an hour before they reached the cityline - the city streets lined in holographic splendor seemed to vanish and give way to the massive emerald branches of oak and pine trees almost instantly, as if each separate environment had been chopped definitively at their boundary. Their vehicle cruised down the mossy pavement, the asphalt still soaked and steaming from the early morning rain, and the sun peered through the thick branches like the fluid tentacles of some eery sungod. Both David and Teddy were taken away by the sun's magnificence, and both questioned to themselves just what it was that spread itself across the forest floor like a lucid blanket. They both stared out the window for quite a while before a clearing of the throat from Monica dragged David's attention away. He turned his head and looked at her, the light in his eyes dancing about like the flame of a candle.  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
Monica said nothing, but stared straight ahead at the road before them, trying to squeeze his voice out of her head. David, however, was undaunted.  
  
"Why are you crying? ....................... Are those happy tears?"  
  
Her eyes widened momentarily - she hadn't even realized she was still crying. She damned herself for such peccant disregard and carelessness. Yet, she could not reach to wipe herself dry; had lost all control of her extremities and was frozen solid, seized by her emotional distress. Her eyes gripped the road as tightly as her nails dug into the steering wheel's leather flesh, and she wondered, almost feared, whether or not she might ever be able to move again. She did not answer him.  
  
"What's for dinner tonight?"  
  
For some reason, perhaps it was the short tolerance of her fear, but this statement irked her severely. Her brow furrowed, and she hissed at David between clenched teeth after a long pause, never once removing her eyes from the road to so much as even glance at him.  
  
"You KNOW you don't EAT."  
  
The severity of her voice bit into each word like the teeth of a sullen dragon, but David's eternally naive and childish nature would never be the wiser. He just continued to stare out his window, believing all to be right with the world...  
  
"I know. But I enjoy sitting at the table."  
  
Forget it, Monica thought, Why bother with this argument at all? I may as well argue with a brick wall. She fell silent, occassionally biting her lip. She couldn't think of anything to say. The silence slowly, gradually, began to consume her and become overwhelming. She took a deep breath, and opened her mouth to speak....  
  
"Mommy, I had a dream last night."  
  
Monica's whole world stopped on a dime. Out of all the things to to be interrupted with, she was definitely NOT expecting this. All of her sadness and regret faded for a long moment, as she treid to make sense out of the words David had just spoken to her. With a brow furrowed in confusion, she turned and gave David a split second glance.  
  
"A.. A dream..? But..."  
  
She returned her eyes to the road, her body now completely gripped by the clammy coldness of fear... fear and the unkowing. Her breathing gained slightly.  
  
"But... How can you..."  
  
This was too much. She simply could not beleive what she had just heard. Slamming on the brakes, their vehicle took a fishtail zig-zag across the two lane road and off onto the right shoulder, dipping slightly into a shallow ditch. Once they had come to a full and complete stop, Monica finally regained the control in her hands to release the steering wheel. She turned and looked to David, who was now staring right at her, her own face full of fury.  
  
"You can't dream, David! You're not..."  
  
Her mouth clamped shut in an almost instinctive way, anything to prevent an uncontrollable outburst that would do David only harm. Clenching her eyes shut, she looked down, took a deep breath, then returned her glare to David. As she stared into his blue eyes, she found a solitude, a comforting peace within them, and her emotion softened along with the tone of her voice.  
  
"What... did you dream about?" 


	4. Ch 4

*************  
  
David's smile broadened and his eyes brightened, almost as if he had endearingly hoped or anticipated a pique in her interest. Folding his hands and gently laying them atop Teddy's belly, who lay strewn across his lap, he just stared at Monica with a softly ambient mysterium that demanded her full attention. He watched as her breath calmed, her muscles loosened, and she gradually leaned back against the seat. Then, in a quiet whisper, he began to disclose his dream, word for word and action for action, as if he had committed each and every nanosecond of it to memory and now recited it, like a handwritten novel. The ever so quiet grumbling of Teddy's gears could barely be heard by either of them.  
  
"My dream.... was, .... white."  
  
He paused, his body remaining completely still for a few short seconds as he tried to think of what to say. Then, with a thoughtful look, he returned his gaze to Monica, who by this point was open to listening.  
  
"It was... white, all over the place. All above me, all below me.."  
  
David indicated with gestures of increasing intensity the deeper he got into his narration.  
  
"Then I was looking around, and looking all around the place, seeing nothing.. I couldn't see anything, Mommy! Then all of a sudden, I realized..."  
  
His voice bottomed out into a nearly inaudible tone as his eyes slowly drifted downwards. His little hands followed the arch of his sight right down into Teddy's belly.  
  
"..I realized that there was no floor."  
  
He paused again, and Monica secretly questioned herself as to whether David had in fact done so for the effect it wrought upon his dramatic presentation, or if her spite was wreaking its havoc. She blinked, and each and every word he spoke began to turn sour in her mind as she wrestled with her impending selfishness. 'Silly robot! Go away, your words make little sense to me! You aren't real, and you can't dream!' But she struggled as best she could, and remained attentive to him. David continued.  
  
"I realized I was flying, Mommy! I was flying high up in the sky... I think. I felt like I was in a cloud, like a part of it. I couldn't see anything but white, perfect white like your bedsheets, Mommy."  
  
Monica cringed at his adoringly eloquent simile.  
  
"Then all of a sudden, I saw my hands.. My hands were out in front of me.. And then I saw my arms, then the rest of my body.. and I was floating. Then I looked up, and there I saw a bright... something. It was so colourful, and it grew bigger and bigger and closer and closer, until it turned into a bird.. and it looked at me."  
  
The thoughts rampaging through Monica's head fell silent. Her face twisted in perplexion, and her eyes darted towards David's.  
  
"A bird, you say?"   
"Yes, a bird with bright silvery feathers, and it kinda moved around in the air...."  
  
David's own face scrunched as tried to find a way to explain his vision. Monica noted rather incidentially that it troubled him so. He stared hard into his lap for a long while, then looked up once again.  
  
"..Like paint. Or like a candle."  
  
His voice fell short and the words faded, smothered beneath a blanket of doubt. His fists unconsciously clenched, and his eyes narrowed. Falling back against the seat, David had fixed his stare on the vehicle's cieling, remaining silent. Monica, confused, then graducally worried, sat up rigidly, and reached a hesitant hand out towards him.  
  
"D...David? Are you.. "  
  
Slowly, reluctantly, Monica outstretched her fingers, and gingerly prodded at David's shoulder. Her mind fluttered hopelessly, having absolutely no idea of what to expect next. But much to her relief, as her touch registered with David, he sat back up, his trademark smile returning to his face. Teddy, who had also been as tense as a supertoy in concern for it's owner could be, began to click his mechanisms with dismay.  
  
"David... Are you ok?"  
  
David nodded, and looked out the window.  
  
"Yes, I'm fine. Why are we stopped, Mommy? Are we here?"  
  
Monica just stared at David, half in fear and half in disbelief. David continued no further with his narration, and in fact seemed to have forgotten about it altogether. It wasn't long before his face brightened in notion, and he opened the vehicle's sidedoor, leaping out onto the soft forest bed and bolting off into the woods. With Teddy tucked beneath one arm and the green plaid blanket tossed over the other, he disappeared amongst the thick brush just as Monica had realized what he was up to, and leapt out after him.  
  
"D... David!"  
  
Monica raced around the ditchbound vehicle as best she could after David, who seemed so much faster than she! It wasn't but a few mere moments before she lost visual contact and his voice was her only guide towards him.  
  
"DAVID! David, WAIT!!" 


	5. Ch 5

Sorry about the delay in this chapter.. I haven't been feeling well, and I wanted to be sure I devoted my full attention to it. Now its ready, and I know you've been waiting.. but quality comes before quantity, you know! :) - LB  
  
**************  
  
The trees were torn from their peaceful array as Monica dashed through them with the force and speed of a frightened deer, chasing after David as fast as she could. In her tremulous and nearly hysterical state, she barely even noticed as the nettles strewn across the forest floor sunk their poisionous teeth into her ankles as she made her way deeper and deeper into the brush towards the echoing laughter of David and Teddy, still far from her sight. She cried and shouted after them with a severely desperate tone as she continued to run, despite the retaliation of her own body's resources. Just as she thought her heart and mind would simply burst from her skin, she finally caught sight of them both - several yards deep into a forest clearing. Stopping momentarily to collapse against the gnarled stump of an oak tree, she called out to them, out of breath and her voice falling short.  
  
"DAVID!"   
  
She watched as David gently yet eagerly placed Teddy down into the cozy nook of a large, upturned tree root, then pulled the plaid blanket from off of his shoulder in preparation to spread it across the ground. In his childish delight, he had somehow managed to get stuck beneath it, as young and playful children often do, and he uncontrollably giggled in a way that seemed to infect Teddy shortly after. The two laughed at each other as David mock-wrestled with the blanket, spinning around in helpless circles and trying to pull it off. 'This is absolutely ridiculous!' Monica's demons plagued her as she watched them mournfully. How much pain had Fate expected her to bear for the selfishness of her family? It might have been easier to fulfill her wicked assignment if David had been something with much less sentience.. like a toaster oven or a robotic pooch. But the loving innocence and heavenly grace of his love and actions simply made the weight of her atrocious decision to abandon him practically inconceivable. 'Maybe he knows,' the wicked demon upon her shoulder whispered disdainfully into her ear. 'Maybe he's trying to make you love him.' She could prolong the agony no more - either hers, or David's. All of her emotions suddenly fell through a trap door, disappearing from sight, as she donned her emotionless cloak once again, just when she needed it most. Her face grew cold and hard as ancient marble, and the tears instantly fizzled from her cheeks. Marching out into the clearing, Monica firmly gripped David by the shoulder, who was still trapped beneath his tent of a blanket, and still giggling. Her anger traded places with her despair as she spun him around and viciously yanked the blanket from off of him, each of her words growing more biting and violently ill as she spoke them.  
  
"David.. David.. DAVID... LISTEN TO ME!!"  
  
She shook him until the eternal smile of his face faded slightly (although never quite disappearing for good) as the darkness of the blanket receeded, and he stared right into her stormy eyes. Trouble entered his own expressions as he noted her distress.  
  
"Mommy? What's wrong?"   
  
Just then, Monica's voice gave out. She couldn't find the words, or the conviction, to explain, and she stuttered incoherently as she fumbled across her emotions. No longer able to look at him, she hung her head shamefully, her stony facade failing fast.   
  
"David... L.. listen.. to me..."  
  
She glanced up at him, to be sure he was still in fact paying attention to her. The dead stare of his devotion to her shot right through her heart, and for a moment, she was sure she felt it was bleeding.   
  
"David, I... I... I have to... leave you here, David."  
  
As she finished the words, she instantly reached her hand up to his shoulder, and placed it there reassuringly - yet, it remained questionable as to whether it was really David she was looking to reassure. He just continued to stare right at her, still completely oblivious to what she was saying. His smile returned a little more as he misconstrued her words, and he joined her by placing his own hand upon her shoulder.   
  
"For how long? Is this a game, Mommy?"  
  
The shard of betrayal twisted itself deeper into Monica's aching heart at his words, and she shook her head with an anhedonic slowness. She could feel the tears welling beneath the bloodless surface of her skin.   
  
"No, David... This.. is not a game."  
  
Still, the childish candor of his thought process prevented little David from understanding. Why did his Mommy worry herself so, especially when there was so much love to be had? He just stood and stared at her, the endless toil of his tiny processors providing little insight into Monica's pain.   
  
"When are you coming back for me?"  
"I'm not coming back, David. You have to stay here."  
  
Monica felt her Soul fall right out of her body, through the ground and bury itself beneath the earth's surface. David's blue eyes widened at her words - they had finally begun to take their toll upon both his conscience and her own. Now, she knew, there was no turning back. She had passed that point long ago. David's next words were spoken with the first hint of pure terror and fright she had ever heard come from him.  
  
"Stay here... alone?"  
  
She bit into her lip, anything to draw the pain and torment away from the situation at hand. A tear fell down her cheek, having finally broken its way through her emotional barrier. It's momentum brought more to her eyes, despite her voracious efforts to halt them, and her voice quavered, along with her false smile.  
  
".. With Teddy."  
  
The conviction of her comfort fell completely hollowed, and David had sensed it instantly. His eyes seemed to narrow into specks of obscurity just as they had while he had retorted his dream to her in the vehicle, and he fell silent for a long moment as the words and realization claimed him. At first, Monica leaned forward worriedly, and speculated as to whether her words had literally broken him somehow, he lay so still. But she was horrifyingly proved wrong as David's expression completely changed; his eternal smile descended, his eyes widened, and his skin almost seemed to flush even paler than it already was. Every last ounce of artificiality within him dissolved into irrelevance, as the sadness Monica felt now became of his own. The desperation in his eyes screamed silently at her with all the hurt and mortification that only a real boy could feel, and in that moment, he was no longer mecha. His voice was pleading at first, each word snowballed further and further into maniacal desperation, and every muscle of his face quivered with the unbearable sadness and frustration, leaving Monica awed through her tears at the genuineness of his expression.   
  
"No... No, no no no NO! Please!.. I love you, Mommy! I love you.."  
  
His hands instantly clamped onto the sleeves of her blouse as if by instinct, and he fell to his knees, trying to pull her down alongside him. Monica wrestled against his grip, but came to no avail as she severely underestimated his strength. His growing hysteria only elevated her own, and she fell beside him, her shell collapsing violently about her as she gave into her disconcertion. Tears now welled down her face, and her voice grew hoarse against her will.  
  
"David.. Please, don't do this to me! Please.. I have to.."  
  
But her urgency to depart only made him clench onto her tighter, and the two of them fueled each other's fury and despair. As she finally managed to pull herself up to leave, she charged after her, wrapping his arms around her as lovingly as he could. Monica couldn't bring herself to see the tears that streamed down David's face - despite the fact that they were artificially produced didn't aid to comfort her. She was abandoning her own son, and nothing would quell its sting.  
  
"Oh, please, Mommy.. Please don't leave me here! I'm so sorry.. I'm so sorry for everything I've done to displease you! I'm so sorry for hurting you, for hurting Martin.. PLEASE!"  
  
Monica screamed at him in emotional upheaval, not knowing what to do. She wished herself far away from this place, from David, from his pleading... from her own betrayal. Yet, he held her fast, and as if having been strapped to a chair and unable to move or breathe, she became insane with the inability to accept what she had done.   
  
"DAVID..STOP IT...STOP IT...STOP IT..."  
"PLEASE, Mommy... if you let me, I'll be so real for you! I promise..."  
  
He had been as real for him as he could ever be, moreso than she would have liked to know. She loved him... but she could no longer. Monica tried to fight through his wave of pleas, and as much as she just wanted to run off and never look at him again, but she gripped his little shoulders and shook him to gain his attention, then forced herself to give him the only motherly advice she had ever bothered to - she felt she owed him that much.  
  
"David, look at me.. Wherever you go, don't go THAT way!"  
  
Her trembling finger was pointed in the direction of the Cybertronics Factory that lay just beyond the outskirts of the forest.  
  
"Whatever you do, stay away from them.. don't let them catch you! .. Stay away them, stay away from all humans, from flesh fairs.. Only stick with others like you, only mecha.. ONLY MECHA... Do you understand??"  
  
David was petrified, unmoving in her arms. He couldn't even begin to comprehend Monica's warning, his whole world had just completely shattered around him, with no way of piecing it back together. His forlorn and lost eyes scraped across her scarlet flushed face, searching for any sign, regardless of how meager, of telling his tale otherwise. Monica had had enough. Gripping his hands firmly, she tore them from her sleeves and knocked him down to the ground with a shout.  
  
"GO!"  
  
She took a hesitant step backwards, then another, as she finally faced her concluding thought: 'Walk away'. No longer able to see David clearly through the tears that clouded her vision, she stumbled backwards with the abhoration of having just accidentially stabbed someone, and put a hand to her face in endless shame. Her voice failed her as she tried to beg for one last final forgiveness.  
  
"I'm so sorry, David! I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the world.."  
  
Poor David just lay on his back in the grass, both him and a stupefied Teddy staring after Monica as she ran for the ditchbound vehicle, away from them.. forever. 


	6. Ch 6

Ok, watch out - this is where the story is going to severely depart from the movieline.. I've followed it as best I could up until now, but from this point on, David will be introduced to a whole new world, which will follow for the rest of the story. This chapter basically answers one tingling question I've had.. David had such determination to become a real boy simply to gain Monica's love, because he knew or believed that she was still out there in the world somewhere. But what would happen to David if he had actually witnessed Monica's end, and was given the absolution of knowing his Imprinter, his only reason for existing, was gone? Would he still continue on the wuest for love? Would he just become a despondent vegetable? Would he simply cease to be? Well, let's find out! - LB  
  
*******************  
  
"Please forgive me..."  
  
Monica's heart pounded in her throat as she raced back towards the vehicle. Her ears were ringing, her face felt as if it was burning, and she had suddenly become excruciatingly aware of the severe stinging all over her feet from all the nettle attacks. As the pain seemed to swell in with the force of an ocean wave, she fell into a limping gait, collapsing against the side of the vehicle. She sprawled her back flat against the side door, staring up into the heavens, panting to catch her breath and whisper her forgiveness to who or whatever listened. As if in response to her pleas, the first drop of a light rain splashed onto her chin, running down the length of her fevered neck. Closing her eyes, she stood perfectly still for just a second before trying to pull the vehicle back up out of the ditch. Her efforts fell for naught, the vehicle was far too ehavy for her alone. She would have to back it out.  
  
Suddenly, she felt a sharp tug behind her - she turned to see David, who had run after her, Teddy closing the line behind them both. She simply couldn't believe this was happening, and in that moment she instantly wished she had a long and blunt metal object. Vehemently withdrawing her hand from David's grasp, it was evident her jealousy and shame had consumed her - there was no hope left for David.  
  
"Get away from me! Go... Please..."  
  
But David hung on stubbornly, as if her leaving would be the very end of his world - which indeed, would most definitely be. He pulled and yanked, he begged and pleaded, mounds of tears streaking his softly featured face, his hysteria gradually intensifying the harder she pulled away from him.  
  
"Mommy, please!.. Please... I love you, Mommy... Please don't leave me and Teddy here.. I'm so sorry.. I.. I never even got to finish telling you my dream, Mommy!"  
  
There it was again. That nonsensickal dream. Was it real? Was he.. real..?  
  
"Good bye, David."  
  
With one last despondent look back, Monica turned away for the last time, and leapt into the vehicle, slamming the door shut before David had a chance to catch her. She fumbled for the keys in panic and anger as David's heartbroken face peered in through the rainstreaked window - the blue of his eyes seemed much darker than before, almost as if some of the light had been lost forever. Pounding on the window, his words could barely be made out by Monica from the other side of the thick glass.  
  
"I.. love you, Mommy.. I love you... Please.. Let me be real for you!...."  
  
Holding her breath, she started the vehicle, and threw it in reverse. Dropping her foot to the gas as hard as she could, she nearly bucked the vehicle as it leapt up the slope of the ditch with amazing precision, and once back on the asphalt, she sped off down the road. She shivered in mental anguish as she watched the reflection of David in her rear view mirror gradually shrink and disappear into the line of the horizon. Putting her bandaged hand to her forehead, she wiped away as many tears as she could, but sighed in relief at her dropping anxiety, now that she no longer had to look him in the eye. With a fading kiss and a word of forgiveness to the wind, she shot down the barren highway towards home.   
  
******************  
  
David just stood on the side of the road, his ever faithful companion beside him, and stared down the direction in which Monica had sped off. His wind tossed, babyfine brown hair concealed the greying hopelessness of his tearstricken eyes as it whipped acorss his brow. He too, was also calmed now - there was no more need for anxiety. David simply resoluted at that moment that he would do whatever he could to win back his mother's favour.. He would scour the face of the earth for a way to make him a real boy, and gaain her unending love in return. Teddy tugged gently at his pantleg, and pointed back into the woods.  
  
"David, maybe we should go back into the forest. Mommy told us not to go that way."  
"No, let's wait here."  
  
David, still despondent and lost in his thoughts, never once moved his eyes from the road, half hoping that he might see Monica's vehicle come speeding back towards them. They both stood and watched silently for what could have been at least ten minutes. She never came back. Yet, David never once felt any less hopeful or positive that she would come back for him.. That she would love him once again.   
  
Together, both Teddy and David watched as the little green plaid blanket sailed down the road, caught in a pocket of the wind.  
  
*****************  
  
Monica's relief was short lived, as she approached the citylines once again and came back into the world that she knew, with all of its mechanical extravagance and holographic facades, it's artificial population and aire - and this was not attributed to just the mecha in her sights. For once, she saw herself for what she was - no, she had already known that. But this was the first time she had faced it, unrelenting against its vicious mock. She was a traitor. A coward, selfish and heartless. All humans were vulturous creatures, who vandalized and exploited everything they made or touched. There was no therapy book she could ever read that would aid in her recovery from this. She too fell into an emotionless slump, just as did her freshly abandoned son in the forest with his supertoy, as her entire mainframe collapsed beneath the emotional gerth. She felt neither angry nor sad, neither happy nor dischorded. Only intense absolution of her sin. For some reason, she suddenly found herself thinking about David's dream.. flying clouds.. pure white, a magickal bird? Could David really.. dream? Was he real?  
  
Was she sending her little boy out to die all over again?  
  
Her heart suddenly stopped, and she slammed on the brakes as enlightenment instantly consumed her. Skidding to a halt, her hands gripped the steering wheel, and she eyed the rear view mirror heading back into the forest. Already, the quickly setting sun had cast its tangerine rays of oncoming twilight across the forest pines and oaks, and she she came to a realization.  
  
"What am I doing?? D...David..!"  
  
Pulling a hasty u-turn upon the pavement, she spun the vehicle around, and took off back into the forest. With wide and wild eyes, she scrutinized the road on both sides of the vehicle, searching for any signs of David.  
  
"Hold on, David..!"  
  
******************  
  
David sat patiently on the side of the road, he and Teddy staring with wonder at the orange brightness of the setting sun as it fell across the leaves and grass like a transparent blanket. They hadn't even noticed as the light rain overhead began to fall a little heavier.  
  
"She's coming back, Teddy."  
"Are you sure is is, David? She didn't sound like it."  
"She loves me, Teddy. And if she doesn't, I'll become real for her.. I'll become such a real boy, that she'll never know it! Like Pinocchio, remember, Teddy?"  
"Yes, David, I remember."  
  
They turned their heads in childish tandem as the distant sound of billowing motor exhaust coming from down the road caught their attention. They were achingly curious, but it was coming from the other direction.. the direction Monica had told them not to travel. So, they decided to wait for whatever it was to come to them.   
  
"I'll bet it's a dinosaur."  
"I bet it's Mommy."  
"It can't be Mommy, Teddy.. Mommy would have to come from the other way!"  
"Oh. Then I bet it's a dinosaur, too."  
  
*******************  
  
Monica sped down the road as fast as she could without losing her sight or her control of the vehicle on the slippery pavement. She was beading sweat down her forehead, despite the arctic frost that spewed from the a/c vents. She rocked back and forth in her seat as she drove, berating herself for being so cruel, and wondering how she could have ever been a mother. As she rounded the bend, her headlights just barely made out the sight of two small objects on the side of the road through the rain.. David and Teddy! Monica quickly pulled over to the side of the road opposite from them and just a few hundred feet away. Leaping out of the car anxiously, she came running towards them. As she neared them, her vision began to clear as her tremendous wave of fright and panic released its icy grip from her bones.   
  
"David! Dav..."  
  
As she neared the two, she suddenly became aware that what she saw wasn't David or Teddy at all.. It was the torn and tattered remains of the rainsoaked and windswept plaid blanket, ripped and caught on the limbs of a rather disdainful looking oak, whose limbs were bent in torturously twisted array. She gasped and reached out for the blanket, yanking the remains from the branches. Pulling her windblown hair from her face, she looked down the road and shouted into the wind.  
  
"David! Teddy! Where are you..?"  
  
She suddenly heard the distant bellowing of a motor exhaust from some ways down the road ahead. Fearing that David may be in trouble, she dashed down the trail, having run too far to return to the vehicle. She called out frantically as she ran down the road, but the wind rendered her voice useless. Her legs felt very blubbery and numb the further she walked, and she just wished to awaken from this nightmare.  
  
******************  
  
The second, and much nearer bellowing of what now was more audible as the crunching gears of a council truck prompted David and Teddy to stand up, the truck's headlights barreling down the road like sabres and illuminating everything around them in an eery light. As the truck neared, David and Teddy could see that its back platform was filled to the brim with tons of .. mechanical parts?  
  
"DAVID!"  
  
Suddenly, the two turned to see a soaked and limping Monica running towards them from across the road, her arms open wide with embrace. David's smile instantly returned to his eager little face.. he knew she would return! He flung his hands up, never once turning so much as a nose to the rain and wind, to give his Mommy a hug.   
  
"Mommy!"  
  
Monica couldn't believe it. Could this really be? Could some good and fairness actually come out of all of this? The last ounce of hope within her begged it so. What a twist of Fate! David, whom had been seemingly inevitably left to fend for himself, somehow managed to find his way back into her heart without even trying! She couldn;t help but break out in smile. She just couldn't believe this. It was all too good to be true. How mysterious are Destiny's ways.   
  
In her excitement and delirium, Monica had not even taken note the headlights of the oncoming truck. Her eyes were only fixed upon the everloving gaze of David, how all the life seemed to engulf his face again almost instantly as he laid eyes upon her. How truly real he seemed to her in that moment. She ran towards him and Teddy, arms outstretched...  
  
"Oh, David, I'm so sorr-"  
  
..neither one had seen the other, and it became pertently clear that some higher word had it in for Mrs. Monica Swinton that day. The monstrous truck had struck her so hard, that the force of the impact had literally expelled her shattered bones from the flesh, sending them reeling forward across the road with a sickening sound. The blood had exploded from her body like a timebomb, bloody mist taking to air and coating everything around the immediate vicinity, including David and Teddy. The truck nearly toppled its load as it skidded and slid to a halt several hundred feet down the road.  
  
At first, they both just stood perfectly still, not quite understanding what had happened. David's brow bent in confusion, and he reached up to wipe the freshly acquired stains from his forehead. He looked at the tips of his fingers, now coated in shiny, red plasmic scarlet.   
  
"Mommy? Where are you?"  
  
His eyes trailed from his fingers to his foot. The tip of his shoe was covered with the same, slimy, viscous fluid that covered his head, and slowly, gradually, he came to the conclusion as to what it was.. yet he didn't want to believe it.  
  
"M..Mommy..?"  
  
It took a little while before he had become coherent with the idea that Monica was gone, but eventually, every movement within him paused, suddenly locked as his brain's query fell apart, and he was caught in a recursive loop that was unable to comprehend this "negative zero". How could the Impressee function without the Impressor? Could the child succeed without the parent? David suddenly seemed lost, completely detached from this world as he couldn't assess this strange event. David's utter torment became this unexaplainable error in calculation. Without A, can there be B?  
  
Little lost David just stood staring down at the blood and flesh across his boot, perhaps even staring right through it, and through the planet itself, his gaze was so unstirring. He nor Teddy had even noticed when the driver and passenger of the council truck had emerged from their nearly wrecked loader and approached them, looking for some answers to the brains and bile smeared all across the road. 


	7. Ch.7

"Hey."  
"Hey, you! You there!"  
  
Two shadows in the darkening of early evening came lumbering across the road towards David and his astonished teddy bear companion, like two rather large and haunting lurches, whose loose fitting clothes seemed to dangle from their tall yet slender frames like curtains. They towered many feet above the boy, who was far too awash in his own sea of despair to even notice their approach before looking up listlessly just as realizing the light had begun to receede from above him suddenly into shadow. David's tearstricken eyes caught sight of their features - two scrungily dirt faced city workers, both adorned with thick, bristly moustaches and one with the added bonus of a smoldering, overaged cigar dangling from his cracked and vein-thin lips. They both (improperly) wore caterpillar yellow safety hard hats dinged with countless black scuffs and half snapped overalls torn through at both knees and smudged across the front with the same black ick that claimed their helmets. The cigar smoking fellow, who seemed decades older in the face than the other one, tipped his helmet back slightly, revealing piggish, watery eyes that probably never saw a day without being bloodshot. He gave a hard look at David, who immediately returned his gaze to his shoe, as he held his hand up against the rain. His partner, remained unmoving, staring at David and Teddy with a solid glare that seemed impenetrable.   
  
"Hey there, son - What the hell are ya doin' on the side of the road? What just happened?"  
  
Neither one of the workers seemed overly startled or concerned by the accident - in fact, they regarded the matter as more of an inconvenience, but David, in his broken state of inertia, would have never known it to be anything out of the ordinary, as he most certainly did not. Instead, he just stood and continued to stare solemnly down at his shoe, not making a single, solitary sound. At the lack of a response from the boy, the cigar smoker just rolled his eyes, and must have became rather agitated, for he grabbed his cigar firmly and hastily from his lips, and tossed it down to the ground so hard that it bounced twice before landing in a patch of wet grass, where it fizzled and extinguished into lifelessness.  
  
"Shit. Must've been a deer or somethin'. Hey kid, was that your dog, or something?"  
  
David remained motionless and silent. By this time, everything about him was soaked through - his clothes, his hair, his skin. Teddy's fur had begun to sag in gravitational distress against the rain. The other worker, who had been completely silent up to this point, snorted in a rather undignified way at them, and turned to look at his co-worker.   
  
"He must be stunned."  
  
The smoker nodded, and laughed in an arrogantly sloven manner that made him seem so very much like the animal that his appearance brought to mind. Neither one was any longer looking at David, nor had noticed the brimming eyes of the teddy bear beside him, curiously picking up everything they said and embedding it into his memory, should they ever need the information in the future.   
  
"Hey, kid.. kid? Can you hear me?"  
  
The other worker reached up to remove his own helmet, revealing a head half shaven, which upon closer inspection would be better described as cleaved. The scalp, along with the hair along the entire right side of his head was removed in an uneven fashion, almost as if a giant scythe had angled right through it, revealing not the bloody brown crust of deadened skin and bone, but the sharp, metallic flash of titanium alloy built around miniscule silicon trappings. His face, otherwise, was altogether orga in appearance, scuffed and grungy like his partner's. With a tilt of his head, the mecha worker turned back to David with his emotionless stare.  
  
"It was much too large to be a dog."  
"Well, what was it, then?"  
  
The mecha stared for a little longer, before glancing up with a thought.  
  
"Be right back."  
  
He wandered back towards the truck and leaned into the passenger side, digging around the cabin for something. He returned just in time to catch his partner light another cigar as he cursed and swore at the constant rain that seemed to thwart his every attempt to get it lit. In the mecha's hand was a small device, curved and angled at the size of a small calibur pistol, tipped with a wide lens and a hollow shaft a hand and a half long. Giving a thoughtful glance to the back of the device, the mecha fiddled around with a few settings before lifting the device and aiming it at the back of David's head.   
  
"We'll find out."  
  
Depressing the triggger, a soft, ambient beam of sapphire blue light streamed out from the lens and right into the back of David's rainsoaked head.. as it penetrated its lazer through his flesh, it gave view to the mechanical workings that lie beneath, the undesputable evidence of David's true origin. The mecha worker frowned, and clicked device off.  
  
"Hmm... just what kind of model ARE you, boy? I've never seen these parts or numbers before. Did you come from Cybertronics?"  
  
David still remained listless and silent. Teddy, who was far too simply programmed to remain silent himself, and he openly answered his question.  
  
"David is my friend. Mommy left us here in the woods, but she came back - but she was in the road when you were in the road, and she must have hit your truck."  
  
The cigar smoker gave an awed look to his partner, who didn't notice it as he continued to eye David, and now the bear as he made his presence known for the first time. The smoker returned his head to the two before them.  
  
"Your Mommy? But, didn't that thing's reading mean he's mecha, Will?"  
  
The emotionless mecha nodded three times evenly.  
  
"Yes, he is mecha. However, I do not recall any lines of mecha that require a 'Mommy'."  
"Well, what do you suppose he means?"  
"Perhaps a closer look will tell."  
  
The mecha reached down and grabbed at the collar of David's rainsoaked jacket, and yanked it back. He slid his hand down the front of David's shirt, and felt the spot above where his heart would be. After a second or two, he withdrew his hand, a blank look in his placid eyes.  
  
"Hrm.. No license, either."  
" I guess he must have been some special order for some artistocratic harlets. Gosh, wouldn't it suck if we'd have hit his 'Mommy'?"  
  
The smoker laughed, the sickening sarcasm dripping from his words with the putrid scent of his breath. He turned around and scanned the road, and the blood trails that led all the way up to the front grill of the truck. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he shouted into the rain.  
  
"What do we do about this mess?"  
  
The mecha shoook his head, placing the scanning device into a holster on the side of his thick, gnarled leather belt. Crossing his arms, he gave a scrutinizing look to David.  
  
"Who cares? We'll hose it off once we get back to the station. It was an accident. It's not like there were any dents laid into it. As for him... Trash?"  
  
The cigar smoker, still puffing away on his second imitation Havana wrap, grinched his teeth, and nodded after a quick moment of deliberation. David, after all this time, had still remained his solid pause, never once had he looked up again.  
  
"Yeah, mightis well.. He doesn't seem to be too functional. If anything, we'll dump him off with the rest of the trash to be scarfed for a flesh fair or something."  
  
The two workers looked at each other before cackling ominously, then with one grabbing David and the other claiming Teddy, they both returned to the truck and carelessly tossed the two misfortuned mecha into the rear of the loader. Climbing into the cabin, they sat there for a few moments, quite possibly to ensure that everything was in working order after the 'accident'... then, without a further note or designation, they started the engine and took off, back on their scheduled route towards the Dumping Grounds. 


	8. Ch.8

"I'm in big trouble."  
  
Joe assessed the situation before him with as clear of a head as his type could - calm and brief as the summer wind. The blood upon his fingers wasn't good. The dead broad lying motionless in the bed wasn't good. The gentleman who had just left the room, leaving Joe with the brunt of the notably apparent murder, definitely wasn't good.   
  
"Just remember.. you killed me first."  
  
The unknown man's words to his murdered beloved just before he planted a kiss to her pale cheek caught Joe by surprise. What strange metaphors these orga use to cover their tracks! Joe eyed the nameless man as he stalked from the room, who barely gave even so much as a rectifying glance towards him before trailing out the door, and disappearing. As the door closed and the silence resumed, Joe simply straightened the collar of his vinyl knee-length trench, his eyes still locked upon the dead woman in the bed - she seemed so... peaceful. With the tip of an imaginary hat, Joe smiled to the corpse timidly.  
  
"Farewell, mi'Lady. T'is a shame our time here couldn't have been more... lively."  
  
With that, Joe followed suit out the door, and strode down the hallway maintaining his cool and jovially trenchant manner. Joe's rather resourceful nature served him well in times like these; no one even took notice as he clung to the shadows unseen and unheard, hustling his way right out the lobby doors and out onto the street. Once out in the humid, dark and dreary citylight, he ran his hand through his holographically enhanced dirty blond hair, promoting it to revert back to its default ebony state. It's eerily doll-esque abruptness upon his head, like patches of plastic threads, gave the only hint to the fact that he wasn't orga. Every other detail about him, from the sassy glimmer in his eyes to the dazzling fashion of his polished vinyl clothing , faithfully and impressively emphasized this mecha's line of work almost as well as his namesake.. Gigolo Joe.  
  
It wasn't but three seconds on his chosen westerly course before his sharp eyes caught sight of a police vehicle, cruising its way down the city street towards his direction. His reflexes served him well as he immediately pulled a 180 and headed calmly back down the way he came. Seizing the first opportunity, he perused past the hotel from which he had exited, and ducked down a side alley, lying flat up against the wall, just out of direct sight. He watched steadily and warily as the police vehicle just continued slowly on by, never once even noticing the completely motionless, black trenchcoated young fellow taking refuge in the alleyway. Being a mecha had its advantages - and Joe took control of every one he could muster in times of need.  
  
As the echoing of the police intercom atop the vehicle bounced haplessly off the walls making their calls inaudible, Joe glanced down at his chest, and pulled his shirt halfway open, eyeing his license tag embedded within his skin just above where his heart would be. It's LED panel glowed with the eery emerald drab of the instrument panel to an age old jetplane. Joe's personal ID number flashed repeatedly in an endless loop across it, indelibly marking him and making him an easy target for the authorities. After a moment of processing, Joe looked back up, concluding his decision to what must be done, then slowly reached for his wrist. Depressing a small button invisible to the naked orga eye just below the wristbone, his entire hand slowly detached at its base and flipped open backwards like a trap door, revealing delicate robotic instruments, wires, and Joe's handy personal tool kit tucked away neatly within his forearm. He poked and prodded around until he pulled out just what he was searching for - a slender, razor sharp scalpel.   
  
Without a sinle word or sound, Joe raised the scalpel to his chest, and proceeded to take one step closer to anonymity. 


	9. Ch.9

David's utter despondency and motionlessness in the back loader of the truck eventually made its way into Teddy, until the two had frozen in their awkward positions with narcoleptic stasis amongst the heaps of scrapped mecha parts and carelessly tossed carcasses. They both had ceased their search for light to watch each other by long ago. The sun had already set, and both David and Teddy had just become accustomed to the darkness, submitting before it effortlessy and accepting it blindly as their new world. It was what might have seemed like ages to them, had they any organ acknowledgement of time, before David spoke his first words since first falling silent at Monica's rather abrupt 'exit'. His voice was hushed and waning quickly, like the whisper of a dream forbidden to be caught by memory.  
  
"Teddy, where do you think Mommy went to?"  
  
David's melancholy and lifeless tone as it echoed in the metal darkness was returned only by the even sadder doubt tainting his teddy bear's response.  
  
"I don't know, David. I don't think she will be coming back any time soon. Or she wouldn't have worn so much red."  
  
The boy tried his very best to turn his head in the direction of Teddy's voice; David could no longer see him anymore in the darkness of the now fully enclosed night, and they were far too packed among the abounding heaps of broken fabricated servitude about them. Yet, David took comfort in the fact that he could still hear the bear well, and just lay very still, awaiting his doom with despondent indifference, his complacent eyes aimed at what seemed to be the shattered track pistons of a multi legged roller bot. His little mind fluttered with thoughts of the afternoon's events.  
  
"Red? But what .... does red mean, Teddy?"  
"You use red crayons. Why do you use red crayons?"  
  
There was a slight pause in conversation as David analyzed the bear's question. When he spoke again, his voice was broken and faulty, failing in sustenance.  
  
"Because... red is the colour of... of roses. And roses are so very."  
"So very what, David?"  
"Very."  
  
Both boy and bear fell silent for a long moment, before Teddy raised his voice once again.  
  
"David? Are you having problems again?"  
"For, Teddy I... cannot.. think..?"  
  
As Teddy tried to computate the situation before him, his logistically feeble brain scanned over it's simplified options, finally deciding to repeat his last statement. He could hear as David was trying to shift about and get free, this time with more aggression than had been present in him since that afternoon.   
  
"David? Are you having problems again?"  
  
Before David could answer, the entire world around them shifted violently as the truck came to a swift halt just outside the Dumping Grounds, then bucked forward slowly, carrying its load off the main road and into the mecha graveyard that lie just off into the outskirts. The two only heard the dull and routine sounds of the truck's engines and exhausts as it carefully made its way around the many, many heaps of useless mecha waste and robotic disposal, islands composed of dregs of human advancement. Here, the lost, the scorned and tattered souls of the mechanical world exiled by orga who had finally rendered their creations useless were disposed of, compacted into these dark and forlorn mounds of broken hopes and shattered dreams.   
  
The truck swerved around several scrap dunes before stopping in an empty clearing and dumping its rear loader to add a fresh load to the decayed landscape. As the conglomeration of parts emptied from the truck, David and Teddy slid out last and landed near its top, partially buried within the robot fossils. With less than a careless glance, the cab's occupants grunted, the driver still tugging away at a sopping wet cheap cigar, and his mecha co-worker steadily drumming his gangly fingers against the rear view mirror, watching the pile of refuge grow behind them as the loader emptied. The truck then quickly leapt into gear and sped off, its frame growling and heaving in retaliation as it pulled curves too tight for so wide and heavy of a vehicle around the metal heaps. David and Teddy remained perfectly silent and motionless until the truck's billowing engine was just barely heard from a distance, and once the forest all around them fell into ear ringing silence once again, they both carefully and slowly began to wriggle amongst the scrappile's weight trying to break free. David pulled himself up out from underneath a particularly heavy multi armed chassis, rusted and chisled with the pungent decay of oxidization, and looked about the dark forest, consumed by a heartstopping apprehension.   
  
All of the seemingly lifeless carcasses around them began to wriggle free as well.   
  
In his sudden fright and inconceivability, once again his voice failed him, and he collapsed to his knees from the sudden shock. Staring straight ahead of him with the dazed glare of a complete mental breakdown, his eyes slowly crossed, his body froze, and he collapsed backwards with the lifeless impact of a deadweight. The boy's artificiality had never been so prevalent before this moment. Teddy, who had lesser fortune in trying to free himself than David, writhed helplessly, pinned beneath a small pile of bundled amputated mecha arms and legs.   
  
"David! David! Are you ok?"   
  
But David didn't answer, and continued to lay motionless - lifeless, so it seemed. As the population of cannibalized mecha shifted and grew about them, breaking free of their heaps and collecting themselves, Teddy managed to find enough shift in weight to squeeze out, and he dashed over to his friend's side as fast as his short legs could carry him. His beady black marble eyes calmly looked David all over, and his furry paws reflexively cupped over David's hands.  
  
"David? Are you allright?"  
  
David said nothing. Teddy shook his hand, still calmly scanning his entire body, then meeting David's eyes to his own.   
  
"David?"  
  
David still said nothing, but the supertoy was surprised as an enexpected spasmodic twitch from the little boy's body sent him reeling away. Teddy rolled down a slight incline of unrecoverable and lifeless mecha heads, and right into the sight of several motley looking androids, who were so neglected and eroded that no two parts of their makeup were of the same origin. Many were missing limbs and other extremities, some had huge gaping holes through parts of their body as if having been piledriven by an oil drill, and some still were missing large percentages of themselves in general, wires, microboards and silicon trappings all exposed and spilling from their lacerations with intestinal grotesqueness. All of them were eagerly, desperately tearing through the piles of non working parts, searching for patches, fixes, replacement parts.. anything that would allow them return to a time when they danced hand in hand with glory.   
  
Among the group of decrepid devices was a quiet and reserved female mecha, who despite the lack of nearly three quarters of her head, still feintly held the poise of what once was a beautifully delicate and daintily crafted maiden of human devise. Garbed in the obvious grey uniform dress of a nanny, her shimmering almond eyes and eternal smile made her seem all the more clandestine and saddly lost within the hopelessness of this desolate place. Teddy instantly felt relieved as she reached for him with a friendly, preprogrammed embrace of motherly love and pulled the bloodstained bear to her chest.  
  
"Why, hello there, little one! What is your name?"  
"I am Teddy."  
"Where did you come from, Teddy? Do you belong to anybody here?"  
"Yes. I belong to David. David is over there."  
  
Teddy strained to point with his stubby paw up towards the small heap from which he had been knocked off from, the jostled gears of his legs whining and purring as they swayed back and forth.   
  
"He stopped, but I think he still works."  
  
The nanny slowly put Teddy back down on the ground and followed the bear up the heap. As they reached the top, they both looked down to David, still collapsed and unmoving. The nanny continued to smile down to them both. With her hands on her knees, she leaned over towards David. She'd have been blushing, had her mechanics still had the capability to do so.   
  
"Hello, David! Would you and Teddy like a nanny? I have many good references."  
"I don't think he can hear you."  
"Oh?"   
"He needs to be fixed."  
  
The nanny frowned only for a spilt second before her eternal motherly smile chased it off again, and stood erect. As Teddy sensed her sudden reluctance, he waddled up to her leg, tugging at the hemn of her torn and sooted dress.  
  
"I see.. That is so sad. I don't think I can fix him."  
"What is wrong with him?"  
"I don't know! I think he is asleep."  
"Asleep? But David does not sleep."  
"Perhaps David is asleep, in a different sort of way."  
"A different sort of way? What does that mean?"  
  
She cocked her head in thought, the two remaining tassels of long brown hair tossing in the wind with flyaway consistency, despite the gunk and refuse that clung to them. Teddy continued to pull at her dress, but she never seemed to notice.  
  
"Perhaps you can find someone around here who can help you!"  
"Who can help us?"  
"Have you tried going to Cybertronics? They are very near this place. That is where most of us came from."  
  
Teddy shook his head.  
  
"Mommy told us to stay away from that place. She told us to go the other way."  
  
The nanny frowned slightly, and looked slightly hurt.  
  
"You have a Mommy?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, I suppose you don't really need a nanny then, do you?"  
  
Her smile slowly crept back up, and she held a hand out to the bear.  
  
"But I will help you find a way to fix your owner, anyway."  
"Thank you."  
  
Teddy dashed up to David's side and held his hand as the nanny leaned over him and scooped the mecha boy up in her arms. With David limp in her grasp and Teddy bulldoggedly at her side, the nanny set off down the heap towards the center of the mecha graveyard.  
  



	10. Ch.10

"Psst."  
  
The soft, black leaves parted to reveal the moonlight, clinging to the cloudless void above like a dewdrop. It was the sole source of light, but it's unusually phenomenal brightness served as more than enough. As he opened his eyes, he could feel the soft, sleek bark of a willow branch beneath his feet and against his back. The earth was far below, yet there was no sense of being up so high. The ground illuded to beckon just a mere few feet away.   
  
"Psst."  
  
The longer he kept his eyes open, the more the light of the moon seemed to consume everything around into inescapable luminance. He felt his heart take on an extra beat, which all of a sudden, his ears became very aware of.   
  
"Look up."  
  
The moonlight had completely engulfed everything within a few seconds, and all that was left were vast stretches of shapeless, massless white space as far as the eye could see. As he turned to look around, he couldn't even see himself anymore. Lost within the void, there was nothing left he could do but to follow the voice and look up.  
  
"Here... catch."  
  
He could see nothing, despite the voice's source seemingly directly above his head - just nothingness stretching into infinity. Then suddenly, something parted the endlessness, slowly drifting down through the air towards him. It was a single, pure white feather. Reaching his hand out, he tried to grasp at it - but he couldn't see his arm at all, nor any other part of his body, and became convinced that he was invisible in this place. He tried to predict where his aim would lie, and he snatched at the feather again and again.. but to no avail. The feather slowly drifted down towards him, then past him, despite his desperate clutching and pawing at the air, and continued to spiral down into the nothingness below. His heart pounded in his throat as he watched the feather disappear, as if it had succumed to an unearthly fog. The voice continued to loom above him, echoing with an eery sense of reassurance, then savagely cut short.  
  
"Hmm.. Too bad. Maybe later."  
  
Suddenly, the now blinding brightness all around him suddenly vanished in a quick fade like failing spotlights, and the world was wrapped in blackness. He suddenly felt a very strong weight upon the back of his head, and he felt compelled to let it take him down. Falling backwards, he felt himself slowly beginning to suffocate, overwhelmed by an intense feeling of entrapment. He struggled to open his eyes, but despite how wide he forced them, the world seemed to sink even blacker into obscurity.  
  



End file.
